For the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Newsweek is republishing a day-by-day reconstruction of the events that led to the worst terrorist attack on American soil. If you'd like to receive each day's entry by email, become a Newsweek Member today. Yesterday: Saudi Prince Turki's resignation surprised the CIA.
He was close to them—and to Osama bin Laden. But the U.S. focused its wrath on Pakistan, not Saudi Arabia. September 1, 2001: In Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance detected a build-up of Taliban forces on September 1, evidently in preparation for an upcoming offensive.
The intelligence portended something much larger, but at the time, the CIA failed to see the gathering pieces. In October 1996, an anti-Taliban alliance formed called the "Supreme Council for the Defense of the Motherland." Uzbek and Tajik tribal factions in the geographical northern third of the country formed the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, also called the "Northern Alliance". It was colloquially known as the umbrella grouping of anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan, but really only one tribal faction.
Former Defense Minister and the Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was the most photogenic and Western-friendly of the warlord chiefs, and he also participated most closely with U.S., French, and British intelligence in opposing the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. During the Clinton administration, particularly after the 1998 African embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the CIA was authorized to assist and support the North Alliance, but only in providing intelligence or directly being involved in capturing bin Laden. That was affirmed in a Presidential Finding (a "Memorandum of Notification" signed by Clinton in September 1998).
It authorized the CIA "to let its tribal assets use force to capture Bin Laden." That MON was broadened in February 1999 to allow the Northern Alliance the same latitude, albeit with the same restrictions, to capture bin Laden, in dealing with other tribal assets. CIA operators undertook the Agency's first clandestine trip to Afghanistan to coordinate with the Northern Alliance in their al-Qaeda mission in September 1999. A six-man team flew to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where they linked up with Ahmed Shah Massoud's people and then flew an old Soviet Mi-17 helicopter into the Panjshir Valley, where Massoud had his field headquarters.
The CIA made it clear that the CIA's interest was in al-Qaeda and that the Alliance should not expect any help in overthrowing the Taliban. According to Hank Crumpton, head of the Afghan operation in the Counterterrorist Center, largely through Massoud, the CTC developed more than a hundred human sources in almost every province and tribe, including penetrations of the Taliban and support networks for al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. The CIA also gave technical collection systems to the Alliance and began flying unarmed Predator drones over the country.
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